Engineers aren’t Made in China

Today the IET published what seems to be the latest in a long line of polls, surveys and reports in recent years that all tell us what we already know: the great engineers of Britain’s past are revered by the public, and those of today are ignored.

You can read the full story of the poll here, but to summarise: Alexander Graham Bell received the most recognition as one of this country’s greatest engineers, while modern greats like Frank Whittle and James Dyson struggled for recognition.

The poll also found that a third (34%) of respondents were unaware that the telephone was invented here, 37% the television, 26% the jet engine and a quarter (25%) the steam engine.

Again, stories about the Great British public’s ignorance of engineering are nothing new. But isn’t it time that engineers, instead of issuing press releases moaning about the situation, started acting like engineers and analysed the problem properly to find the solution?

It strikes me that in a world where so much of what we buy is Made in China, members of the public find it difficult to believe that anything is made or invented in this country anymore. I think most members of the public, as the poll shows, believe great British engineering is something reserved for the history books.

Perhaps if companies opened themselves up to the public more, explained what they are doing and the significance of it, this could start to gradually change perceptions.

Wouldn’t it be great to see this country’s factories and process plants open their doors to the public?

One good example I noticed of this recently was in the construction industry, which last Friday and Saturday ran its Open Doors Weekend 2013. This inaugural event, which its organisers hope will become an annual one, saw the industry open the doors of construction sites across the UK to members of the public, specificially targeting 11-24 year-olds, teachers and parents.

Wouldn’t it be great to see this country’s factories and process plants once a year do something similar? To show the public that not everything is Made in China. To show them this country has a wealth of engineering talent.

I’m not saying that it will change the public opinion of engineering overnight, but it would be a start.

Team GB dominated the track cycling events at last year’s London Olympic Games, thanks to the philosophy known as “marginal gains”. British Cycling director Dave Brailsford described the “marginal gains” principle in a BBC interview by saying: “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.”

Let’s start looking at those “1%” opportunities to improve the public’s perception of engineering. Opportunities like the Open Doors Weekend. Maybe then, just maybe, we can start to turn the tide of public opinion.